I would call into order this March 24th meeting of the Common Council Hiring Committee should be a fairly
straightforward meeting. We're just finalizing some work that we didn't get to in the agenda on our
last meeting, namely, finalizing our description for our terms. So with that,
Let me get on the Zoom as well so I can share screen like we did last time. Is there an agenda for this
meeting? No. Okay. I think the only item is that one. How do I get the Zoom link? It's on the calendar
invite and I can drop it into the chat if I see this. Operating the two systems here.
Actually, you're not there. I've got it. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm always hungry, so. Recording.
I mean, no. Is there an echo? Nice. Need me to go away? Magic. Oh. I can't share my screen. Right. We
went through this last week. We did. I just totally forgot. I'm not even... Rita, do it. If you can,
that would be awesome. If you're able to. Why can't you share your screen? Because... At admin rates.
Yeah. We have to get our computers updated.
The other thing we should do too is if you want to drive, you could, you know, just keep the remote,
the mouse. I can make the adjustments out here. So you want me to...
You're able to share your spoon, if you're able to. Sharing is not turned on. Yeah, same thing. Oh,
sorry. I think you've been able to share before. I think so. So that should take care of it. We'll see.
Is Council Member Willow coming today?
I just texted him. All right. Okay. I think we all had a chance to go through, but I think just for
it to be thorough, it might be useful just pick up where we stopped and just make sure we talk through
all the comments and then accept them. Then accept them.
Question, though, for the packet, it would probably be useful to keep it redlined, or should we just
have a clean version to go out? Hey, Dave, sorry. What do you think? What do we think? Would it be useful
to have? OK, so I'll make a clean copy that we'll put in the packet tomorrow so I won't accept any of
the things. OK, so the goal of the description was to really elevate the position, highlighting the
overseeing functions,
Et cetera. And that's what we talked about one last time. And we were on point. Uh, right there where
it says, um, insures out of the staffing, I think is where we left off, right? Yes. Under four difficulty
of work. We're all the way down there. No, I think we were here. Yeah, I think we're there. So. Any so I.
Art in green is what I added. Overseas posting agendas and information packets for such units. I was
thinking we should use the same insurers there. That's fine. I.e., make sure that this happens and if
there's nobody, if our devolution has failed entirely, then the person does it. Yeah, I like insurers.
Yes, I was leaving that to you. There's the city's collective bargaining team when directed by council
and we took out the other stuff about, and then this, yeah, yeah, I remember. So we were here because
we were talking about this question about whether council staff represents the council at public meetings.
Yeah, I was wondering, I was trying to remember a situation in which our staff represented us
at a public meeting. Like where we were not there, but they went. Right. Yeah. Do they not represent
us when we are there, though? I think the word represent here is different. OK. I don't recall, but
I'm a bit sick to private.
No, I can't recall any time when somebody showed up to speak on behalf of the council as one of your
staff members. Unless maybe for something like, and this is a stretch, but thinking about Residence
Academy or Leadership Bloomington or some of those larger outreach events where it's possible a staff
member went on behalf of council because council member or council leadership couldn't show up at the
last minute.
So there is some possibility potential for it. Don't they go to CAPS meetings? And Council does not
necessarily go to CAPS meetings? Yeah, they're staffing those meetings. They're not representing Council
meetings. Do we not want them to tell us, hey, this is what happened at CAPS meetings, like the way
that if I went to a CAPS meeting, if I was the liaison, I would tell everyone, hey, this is what's going
on? We haven't asked them to do that. Good.
Yeah, but when they're operating in that space, they're not speaking for the council. Right, exactly,
that's true. I've staffed a CAHPS meeting before and I was not speaking for the council. Right. Well,
and now there's a council member liaison. Yep, so no longer, yep. It might be worth taking out the first
chunk of that sentence and just putting, ensures appropriate response to resident and media inquiries
concerning council business, because I think that that would be
That would be inclusive of circumstances where they would need to represent us at instances like Residence
Academy or speaking to groups. Yep. I think that's great. What was the comment? Thank you.
So thank you, Sam. Meaningful. Yep. Perfect.
Okay then, overseas processes for receiving, referring, tracking, and following up on constituent concerns
to help ensure that matters raised with the council are directed appropriately and addressed in a timely
manner. So my note here is that they've never done that.
As far as I know, there's no process, but receiving, referring, tracking the phone. And this was it.
So this was a purposeful addition that I made because what we currently have is a, is the sense of there's
this counseling mill and it's just.
collects all things and they look through it and if it's relevant, they just send it to us, right?
There's no, there's not an active process through which they're trying to make sure that information
is received and given to us. And I actually think that's something I'd love somebody to be thinking
actively about, like how do we get better information and just, you know. I think also sometimes when
we receive like a whole slate of PDFs from the council of the mail. Oh my gosh, yes. Or things that
like summarize, it's a little bit unclear as like,
Okay, well, there were 3 different resident concerns. Yes, kind of hard to tell exactly who is going
to take care of that. Then they're going to use this. I'm sure you guys have talked about this before
and my apologies for missing your 1st, 2 meetings, but. This is something that was done in the past
and there was a tracking system, but over the last. 4 years, you've gone through at least 4 research
assistance.
three or four deputy attorneys and three or four attorneys. A lot of the things that you guys had established
in the past have fallen off just through lots of institutional knowledge. One by one by one by one,
we've actually lost some of the systems that were in place and the people coming in didn't know to train
somebody on the things that followed. That's good to know. Really? I don't know about you, Dave, but
I never knew there was a process.
It would be welcome. Yeah, again, the only reason that I know that is because for years I was working
next to council staff members and actually listening and watching. And hearing and sometimes being shown
the systems that they had in place. Again, some of those things were not things that would probably
rise to the level of your knowledge and or experience of them because on the receiving end of it, you're
not going to see it. And if you're not in the office.
40 hours a week or more, you're just not gonna be aware of those things. So I'm not saying it like,
how can you not know it? It's much more in the space of, I don't know that you would have known it unless
somebody was sitting here walking through it every day. And so far as this job description is really
helpful, and it's helpful that we have to do this in this type of format, because it's giving us an
opportunity sort of line by line to think about counsel, staff,
organization. And I think that, you know, saying very clearly, like exactly what you just described
to me as an ad hoc process, where they're sort of deciding on their own, maybe council needs to know
people are calling about this generally or something like that versus where we would say look like,
like, we as a council might have some outcome in mind that we want in relation to how the general public
gets information and talks to council and, and
That if that sort of is no one's job, I think it's really helpful to say, actually, that's something
we want us to have to do, which is, you know, which is think very carefully about how council receives
and gives information. Um, I think sorry, something to add to that is that you have to also consider
how constituents want to interact with you. Yes. Never wanted me to tell them the answer people to be
represent basically represent, you know.
They have they want to talk this is level they want to talk to you guys and there's some things where
you can triage and be like, oh, for this, you should actually talk to this office. They can help. Yeah,
for a lot of the things they want that direct interaction. Yes. Yes. And I mean, this really became
all the more clear yesterday. We got an email and the email starts with like.
You know, only some, some, some, some respond to my emails. And I'm like, I've never received an email
from this person ever. And I know who this person is, but I'm like, I've never received an email in
this, in this email cap from this person. Yeah. Unless they've been forwarding some packets. I'm sure,
I'm sure they are. But my, but my point is, and this is, this is, you know, yes, both to compliment
those who, who have seen those emails and responded, but to show that the process is such that I'm like, I've.
I never saw an email, right? And then that's a, I think a concern that all of us share. And I think
residents share as well, you know? So. There's also a public relations piece where I think that the
majority of our residents assume that anything sent to council at bloomington.in.gov is going to go
to all nine of us. And that's not the case. And like, that's okay. Yeah, but that's something we should
be talking about. Yes, exactly, exactly. So that's why I added that. Okay, that's fine. I just had.
wanted to talk through it, so I appreciate that. Overseas, this is just a change of sort of elevating,
I think, along the same line. So instead of just supervises the development submission and execution
of the department budget, said oversees the development submission, administration and monitoring of
the council's department budget in coordination with appropriate staff and consistent with council priorities.
The bit that I don't know if it's super clear is that this person not only, because we're trying to
position this person as, you know, head of council department or whatever, right? And I mean, the idea
is that it's not just they're a passive person who takes a budget and goes, then submits it and we ask
them questions and things like that. But actually they also have a job of
administering that budget once we have it. I mean, that's, I think, been what's left off of this, that
they actually then run said budget, whatever size it is. Yeah. And this actually was relevant this year
because Lisa and I were having all these conversations about, hey, we have this money for external counsel.
Can we use this for, what do you call it?
accessibility consultants as an example, right? And it's like, yeah, it falls within the category. Like,
it sort of felt like the type of thing that she should have just been able to say, like, it's already
in our budget, this falls within the category, and this is how I'm going to do this because it's a necessity
of the things that need to be done. It's like, it didn't feel like a conversation that she needed to
be having with me
And then vis-a-vis the whole count, like it wasn't like, this was like daily operations, like the same
thing. They shouldn't be asking us, can we buy pens and can we get furniture? Like, you know, right?
Like there are certain things that just like run the office. Yeah. And we really should empower them
to do so. I agree.
And then the following goes, directs the annual review of department activities, services, operational
effectiveness, and oversees the preparation and submission of related reports, both anticipating the
fact that both thinking of staff oversight. So I think that was what originally was there, performance
and reviews, departmental activities and services, but then elevating a little bit to the idea that
we're moving toward outcomes, et cetera. So they actually should be mindful of however
But it's like, you know, if we spend money, we want to be tracking things. And so we'll be creating
processes. One hopes that in some future date, it's actually be reporting on outcomes of where money's spent.
And then the last one sort of just summarizes all the things above, which is to say, the person serves
as the director of the council office, providing strategic leadership, vision, and continuity of operations
across council terms, and supervises and directs the deputy administrator attorney, assistant administrator,
interns, and other, and what I wanted to say was, what I was trying to say here is, this person directs
the council office,
I was trying to capture the fact that I think became attention in the sense reflecting on what you said
multiple times David were like, you know, we had a time where Dan Sherman was in the office and he
you know, was in the office and then you get a whole new set of council and he's still in the office
and you get a whole new set of council and he's still in office. And there's, you know, you want this
person to be thinking about continuity of council office, not thinking about just reactiveness to the
nine people who are currently in council, right? And so that there's a little bit of institutional
development, right? That it's like, it's still entrusted to the elected people, but at the end of the
day, you want this person to be thinking about what does council office look like in four years?
Um, you know, not just what are these nine people want right now? Um, type of questions. That's also
helpful because apart from like the administrative onboarding that we received as new council members,
like there wasn't a lot of like, Hey, this is how you do this type of type of teaching. And so it would
be helpful to have, um, our office staff like,
This is how you become a successful counsel number well not also I mean that also goes to this question
why why we try to emphasize all the compartmental you know partnership parts, because you know. It put
in myself in the shoes of this person and then there's a new Council right that person is also saying hey.
Will you come in and give a one hour presentation to council members about, you know, for example, Robert's
Rules, because you are a certified, you know, nationally recognized Robert's Rules person, right? Like,
and you know what I'm saying? Like, like, that's the type of thing that somebody who's thinking about,
you know, like the would be, would be doing, right?
we may individually go and say, hey, Clerk Bolden, you know, hey Colleen, can you tell me about,
you know, and actually I think the learning curve for a new council member became really heavy, right?
So anyways, but I wanted, the thing that I don't think I've captured here is I didn't want,
I wanted to say, like, I didn't want to name, I named the specific rules, but I wanted to basically
just say, whoever works in council's office reports to this person in short.
So I don't know, but I don't know if this, does this capture this well enough, right? I think so. Well,
and especially if we take this job description as a whole and we see it go down, that they can have
a role in reconfiguring. Yes. Yes. Yes. Great point. Yeah. Now the only, the tension here, and this
just as we're being a bit meta here, the tension becomes to me,
I don't know if we've outlined clear enough within this and maybe the job isn't as necessary. We talked
earlier about sort of reports to council and navigates the nine different peoples, making sure that
this sort of sets with different priorities. And we I think got at that nuance fairly well above, but
I'm just curious if we need a clearer line, like a clearer reporting line within the job description
or if that's something that can be dealt with at another time.
in another document or through another tool. You mean a reporting line who this position reports to,
or? Correct. Right, like, because we're walking this tension, I think, fairly well, but I just wonder
if we want to be more explicit. You know, but again, we could think about this in another document.
Like, right, we could come up with just a statement as a council that sort of says how we want it to
be done, but I don't know if, no.
to what extent you all think within a job description you want to be a bit clearer about. I mean, if
I were applying for a job, I would want to know who I report to. Right. And it would make me feel better
if I reported to one person rather than mine. Exactly. Exactly. But that's a pretty big decision to
make. I guess we can put it in. Would you kind of not like to have a different boss every year as well, right?
It's hard enough to have a different department chair. But what this really sounds to me a lot also
is if you look at all the positions that report to boards of directors, take a look at nonprofits and
see what their reaction is like. That's a great point. That's a great point. Thank you. That's a great point.
Okay, I think this is the perfect point and one that we actually could answer while sitting here. Let's
finish and then spend whatever time we have to do that. You're a brilliant human, thank you. Okay, so
moving on then to job requirements. The only thing added there, took away the word special. Why?
Yeah, because it's just like, well, it doesn't matter if they're, like, why does it have to be special
circumstances? You understand how cities work, right? And then added a broader sense of, you know, not
just like a working knowledge of budget preparation, but working knowledge of public budget development
administration and oversight sufficient to supervise the council department budget and advise
on related institutional issues. Now, we could make this a stronger requirement, which is the person
needs to have had experience with budgets. Is that going to limit our candidate search? Yes. Is that
a way that we would like to limit our candidate search? What way to work in budgets?
Well, so whether it's a working knowledge, i.e. I get how budgets work versus. I don't think it's a
huge ask. It's not like they're running a 40-numbered department, which is great. Right. I don't think
it's fine the way it is. Working knowledge. Is that what you were getting at, Dave? Yeah. I mean, that's
also something that we can ask in interviews. Sure. Yeah.
I think that might be a better place to address it. This is the optimal, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean,
that's why they don't, but they can pick it up because they're smart. Yeah. Yeah. It could also add
like experience with budget preferred, but not necessary. Cool. Skeptical. Sorry. I just sat through
a meeting at the comptroller's office today when you're like, oh, it's small. So they're going,
oh my God. The comptroller, that's all different. Yeah, that's different.
But it is true though, in the sense that there are certain things that already exist in the city. It's
not like, it becomes a heavier lift if you haven't done budgets, but the process is already set and
outside, you know, like the person ideally is participating in an active way here, but in the worst
case scenario, the person fills out the form that is given to them, you know, right? So I think you're
correct. Excuse me, I've been sniffing a little all day.
Um, okay. So, um, yeah, exactly. There's public meeting. Are you? I assume you know, the contractors
balloon. Yeah. Thank you for clarifying for the record. May the record show that council member is indeed
not a cat.
What? A Zoom joke. Don't you guys remember? Your honor, I'm not a cat.
Okay, let's move on. Okay, under number three, consult regularly with the common council regarding major
legal policy governance and administrative matters, reports directly to the council. Okay, so we actually,
I actually did anticipate this reports directly to the council and work is reviewed primarily for alignment
with council objectives, legal sufficiency and overall effectiveness that echoes what we have above
on council priorities. Yes. The word effectiveness, any concerns there?
I like it. Works with substantial independence and exercises a high degree of professional judgment
in carrying out the responsibilities of the position, provides executive oversight of the council office
within general policy direction and supervisory boundaries established by the common council. Well said.
Thank you.
No, they don't spell incorrectly. What's spelled incorrectly? What is? Judgment. I think there's supposed
to be an E. It can and cannot. What is this? British? I know. Is this British? No, they're both. They
have free variation with some words. I do spell gray with an E, if anyone's watching me. It's good to
know. They're both accepted. I've been wondering that for years. Right? I think they're both accepted.
Which is preferred?
Okay, thank you. People started adding it after a popular low-cost gym started adding it and making
me crazy. Is that right? How interesting. There's a low-cost gym. Okay. Stay on task, everyone. Do you
say judgment more than once here? Is it consistent with
It's a little smart. Oh, true. The other thing on that note, I was going to request if you could say
common council. Yes. And not jump between city council and council. It consists of, yeah, where did
I, let's see. I would just do a finding a place at the end. I didn't say city council ever. Oh, good.
I'm going to start rocking. Okay. Okay. You do say common council versus council.
Shoot, okay. Well, council is this short. I think I said, no, actually, I think, I think I've said council
office. I don't think I've ever said common council office. Listen, council office. See if I. Give me
a moment for me to interject something. Please. That's why you're here. My initial plan was just to
listen. Two foot rule. I'm not good at this.
Are you planning on regrading the position before you post it? That's the hope. If you are, you might
want to consider some of the phrasing that you're using in terms of
received exercise and everything else, because part of that goes into the rubric that the HR department
uses. And so there are some things where you say independent judgment actually will grade higher as
opposed to considerable or professional judgment. If they're writing policy themselves, that will actually
impact versus if they just are on the receiving end of it and execute it. And I just, I want to throw
that out there. That's what, this is actually the intent that I was trying to get at here is to elevate
it. And so that's why, so, but I don't know if I,
And the other part about that is, well, oh, no, because your employees don't serve at your pleasure,
right? They're hired, so they're not appointees. Nevermind. So are we, if I go back to the beginning
here, it says job creating 12s. Is that currently an 11? No, it's currently a 12. Oh. I just highlighted
it to be like, who knows what it will be once we reevaluate.
So do we have consulted with HR about the process of? Well, yeah, the process, yes. So once we agree
on the job description, we'll then start the process of getting it evaluated before posted. OK. Yes.
I clearly actually anticipated my own concern now. I brought this up earlier. It shows up right here
very clearly.
So in coordination with the council president and consistent with applicable city policies that human
resources procedures, exercises, supervisory authority over council staff, including participation in
recruitment, interviewing, selection, work assignment, performance, management, professional development,
discipline, where appropriate recommendations concerning termination, may recommend revisions to subordinate
job descriptions and organizational structure to improve
council office effectively. So instead of terminate employment, which is what is in the crossed out
text, you have recommend recommendations concerning termination. But won't this position have the power
to terminate employees? I mean, I think should, right? Yeah. So we should adjust that.
Okay, so I will say, in both cases, I'll take away the recommend, yes. And more appropriate decisions
concerning termination may recommend revisions, so actually may make revisions to subordinate
job descriptions and organizational structure to improve council items. Are you okay? You can't all go.
You can't all leave. To improve cancel out the effectiveness. Yeah. Yeah. I wonder like in coordination
is maybe the wrong verb there though. Right.
Is there a better word? Well, because the coordination suggests that the council president is also doing
these things. Right. So, so consultation. Yes, right. Consultation better better. Yeah, now I'm wondering about.
So including participating in recruitment, interviewing selection, work assignment, performance management,
professional development, discipline, and where appropriate decisions. So you have somebody participating
in decisions. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's not right. You should have a make-up decisions. OK, so including.
Maybe just delete participating in, including recruitment, interviewing selection. Yeah, that sounds
good. Perfect.
And recruit okay so let's read again in consultation with the council president and consistent with
applicable city policies and human resources procedures exercises supervisory authority over council
staff, including recruitment interviewing selection work assignment performance.
performance management, professional development, discipline, and where appropriate decisions concerning
termination may make revisions to subordinate job descriptions and organizational structures to improve
council office effectiveness. Yep. Okay. So structures, I would put the S in there. Thanks. Okay. Difficulty of work.
The work is highly complex and requires the application of advanced legal knowledge policy judgment
and administrative leadership to address novel sensitive and high impact issues facing the common council
and actually the city you know.
Because it's not just facing the common council, but it's like, because if we're doing an ordinance
to change the UDO, like that's not, the sensitivity is not, it faces the council. It's the sensitivity
is like, this is a thing that matters to the city, right? So should I say common council and the city
of Bloomington? Yes. Or the residents of Bloomington, right?
Maybe the city and residents of Bloomington. And its residents? Yeah. The incumbent must interpret and
apply a broad range of laws, regulations and procedures while simultaneously managing competing priorities.
And then we didn't like political considerations earlier. So should we take it out here? Yes. Because
you don't want this person making political considerations, right? Yes. What I said in my comment was,
They could warn. Perhaps we could rephrase to say a folding the council's role as legislative body and
final fiscal authority. Okay. Um, I'll put that at the end. Um, So that's the only political thing is
just asserting that we, you know, have our own powers. There was a, I think when I originally bought
this up though,
My thinking was that, and this was also building off the way I think are kind of we've all made around
how, I mean, at least in my tenure, the type of memos that we get for example.
And for context, I teach memo writing, and I always tell people when they write memos that you need
to tell the person the implications through multiple lenses of the decisions that they're making. And
if you're giving somebody advice, you might say, yeah, this is the decision. If you want to do this,
then you should do this. If you want to do this, then you should do this, is the way you write. We often
just get summaries, which is, this is what's going on.
And the space in which you can act, you can approve or disprove. This is roughly what the memos that
we get. Very rarely do we get things that are like, you know, like what we got recent, what we got right
before our staff left about PUDs where it's like, you can do this, but you can't do this and you can't
write. And we don't often get advice. Um, and I would love advice. And so that's what I was trying to
also to capture here a little bit.
That's not what I would understand reading the phrase polynomial considerations. Exactly. But I do wonder
whether, I mean, maybe we've already captured that by talking about the sensitive issues, how they matter
to the city of Bloomington as residents. I think public consequences actually might cover that. Oh,
good. Yeah. Okay. So you think,
Let me, sorry, I was in that. So replace, upholding the council's role as legislative body and final
authority. So I'll add that at the end here. And then, does this need a that? And then you said, you
said what? Oh, just in the next sentence, it says the role regularly involves time of sensitive and
public consequences, which I think
Um, it's actually more what we're talking about than like political considerations. Yeah. Agreed.
Very good. Are we happy with this? Yes, sir. Right. Let's go around with this.
balanced well reason and objective legal and strategic advice. And so I capture that there again, the
strategic part to council members, particularly where legal risk policy disagreement or competing
institutional interests are present. And then I added the part about provides legal opinions during
public council meetings. I know that that's something that's very stressful. Yes.
People should know that it will be expected. Yeah, I agree. Thank you for adding that. And then I wonder
here, like, you know, so we said maybe called on to work in the evenings under weekends. They do like
it's not maybe called on the person. Well, the evenings is will happen. The weekends may happen.
You know, I think there should be an expectation that, you know, hours are irregular, right? Yes.
There we go. Incompan should expect irregular hours. Including evenings and weekends, yeah.
This will include evenings. Incumbent should expect irregular hours. No, but irregular hours. Evenings
and occasional weekends? Give me the full sentence out. Oh, sorry. Incumbent should expect irregular
hours given the council's scheduled period. This will include evenings and on occasion for blank weekends.
If we're setting up the office in a way that's functional, they should not have to work most weekends.
I think the expectation is... That's a big if. Right. I would not say rare. I'm talking about occasions,
and on occasion. Occasion. Yes. That's a fantastic thing. And then it says scheduled evening meetings.
Well, we probably don't need that last...
Yeah, right. Yeah, that's right. Is it worth saying council generally meets on Wednesday nights? Well,
we also meet on Tuesday nights for Jack Hopkins, right? But like, regularly, like the full body is that
like, you should not expect to have Wednesday nights available. It's like, basically what we're saying.
I love typing. Now it breaks the cycle. No, that's hard. Could we put it after the unforeseen complications?
Thank you.
Maintains frequent contact, but okay. Any last thoughts? Last, maybe going back to the top, we didn't
really decide on title. I floated this Chief Attorney to the Common Council and Director of Common Council
Office title, but it works. It is very mouth, it's a mouthful.
Chief, chief attorney and director. Yeah. Maybe you take away that. So it could be chief, could be chief
attorney and director of the common council office. Yeah. Yes. Okay. May I ask a question? Please. What
is the value of adding word chief? Um, it sounds more important. Yeah, I think.
And it implies there's another attorney. When I hear the word chief, it implies to me that there's somebody
who's directing the chief in some way, shape, or form. There's a mayor, or there's somebody above them
in some way. Oh, that's interesting. I hear it as a diminishment. Really? Yeah. It is a change of title.
I thought it was just going to be.
I don't know. Maybe we should ask the chief deputy. I was going to say in most of the conferences that
we've been to, it's always a council attorney. There's not the word chief. There's something implied.
rising to that level that you're kind of referencing. That's interesting. I think it's a more common
knowledge type of phrasing. Yeah, okay. That makes sense. I don't mind the word. It doesn't mean we
don't. But the reason you're the chief deputy is because there are other deputies. Exactly. You're the
big dog. You're the big dog. See, that's how we interpret it.
I mean, we could just say council attorney and director of the common council office. I mean, I'm happy
with that. What is Margie Rice's position? Corporation council. Yes. I mean, it could just be council
attorney and director of the common council office. It's kind of reads like it's the chief attorney
of the common council office. Right. Yes, I think that's fair. So council attorney and director of the
common council office.
But yes, let's make it legal state of counsel, lead legislative counsel. Now, thank you for the contribution.
By the way, that's how we should do public. Okay. Is there anybody want to.
Any of you AIs want to apply what I've been thinking? No. That's what AI sounds like in your head. Any
other thoughts on this? Okay. So last question I'm here is,
Um, because I think we can take on the question of for your governance, like, as, as, as we get the
person in, because I think we dealt a little bit with it within the document. But I do think that we
should advise ourselves by how boards. Right? I mean, I think that we have a perfect natural model to
look at. Um, the, the last question is that I'm going to.
Be drafting a memo to the council to go out tomorrow in an agenda. Is there anything so from what from
our discussions with what I'm saying in the memo is that here is.
Here is the job description that we would like your approval on that we have to vote for according to
our charge and that the second one was a brief update on the conversation that we had with the Robert
Haft people as a model of the type of engagement we can do and that we are also asking for a vote on
item five in our charge, namely our ability to start talking directly with
or people who could, I'll think of this in a more eloquent way, but people who can in the interim service
as counsel, attorney, et cetera. Okay, so both asking approval to engage somebody, a firm like Robert
Half. Correct. And to post the job and to engage either through Robert Half or directly an attorney.
a temporary attorney. Yes. Because that could be a separate thing from Roe's. That's a good point. Should
I separate those questions or should I just say that we want to have the authority as was originally
envisioned in the charge. We would like to have the authority to engage with external entities, both
to assist in the hiring process,
process as we deem relevant and to find interim help. Something along those lines? Yeah, one thing,
too. Please. It might be good to proactively answer some potential questions that might be asked. OK.
Who is going to determine the firm? How is that going to decide those sorts of things? You can preempt
some of the questions that might come.
And do we have an answer to those questions? I mean, do we, the broad guidelines by which we'd like
to operate on this type of decision, do we want to do it as a, you know, as a collective? Do you want
me to go and find people that we then bring to a meeting for us to decide, like, how would we like to
do it? Are you able to find people? I don't want to overdo it. Okay. It might be helpful if we could have a,
list of three or four and just pros and cons of each, and we don't need to like interview them all,
but if you could just send us a couple and- And then we decide this way? Sure. Yeah. Does that seem
reasonable? Two or three would be fun. Yeah. But do you think we should separate this question, namely,
so that everybody's aware that we're going to pursue at least three things, which is putting out this
job description,
get potentially engaging with somebody to help with recruitment, and certainly getting somebody to fill
in in the short term. But what that somebody looks like could be a lot of things. I mean, it could be
Larry might want to work with our time. I mean, it might be worth having the discussion on what that
looks like as a full council, but saying we will take your advice.
We certainly don't want to come. Do we agree? We do not want to come back to council because it just
puts us on the fear timeline. We don't need to come back to council. So if we had somebody tomorrow,
Thursday, who says, hey, I'd be happy to work part-time for the council as legal. We don't need to have
to go back to council and say, is everybody okay with us hiring Larry?
I agree with you. Okay. And similarly, we don't want to have to go back to the council and say, are
you all okay with us engaging with Robert Half? Like, you trust that the four of us have made a good
decision here? Yes. So would the four of us also decide on the temporary? I think that's a good idea.
I think that's a very good idea.
I just really believe that in the multitude of council, there's safety. I just think it's a lot better
to do it this way. Any other concerns you might think that would come up? Maybe further down the road,
the one thing that popped into my mind is it does take a minute to get people as vendors into the city.
Which is one of the reasons why Robert Athens was a good choice. I think if I could also say I think
separating those
make it easier to move forward. Good point. Good point. And then the other thing that comes to my mind
is the question about finances. And so I imagine the guiding principle that I have now is that we would
operate within the budget that we already have, essentially. It's like that would be our sort of immediate
constraint.
because anyways, anything about that, we'd have to go to council to get some type of appropriation or
something like that. Even though I've talked to the mayor, she's willing to do that if necessary. But,
any other? I think you guys might want to also discuss timeline. Yeah. And get some milestones in place.
Good point. Okay. Okay. There's a recess coming up, but then what? Yeah. Realistically, if you put out
the job description, it will take some time to get someone in. Yeah.
Okay, excellent. Wait, did you mean right now we should think about timeline? Yes. Yeah, I think there's
a little bit more of a urgency. There's two paths that you're on, right? There's the immediate need.
I mean, there's a potential regular session next week. There's two more months. So can we make a temporary
hire in the next two weeks?
That's my hope. Can we meet again as a committee? Yeah, for that we'll refer to meeting again. And then
I would hope that we would get who we're aiming at, you know, having somebody established by our end
of our recess. Yeah. I think that's doable. Yeah, I do too. I have an optimistic essence.
What is the next time, as you know, because next week is the state of the city. The 31st, right? Yes.
We could meet before that if anyone really. I also I don't know if you all have noticed, but. We may
not need to meet. I'm debating. Also the bank saying this out loud, but he said it in the other meeting.
Yeah, I'm debating whether we whether we need
whether we need to have a meeting on April 1st at all, because at the moment, we have no legislation
scheduled, no reports scheduled. Well, so as we bounce helpful to them. Well, correct. I mean, but if
we do that, then I think that's obvious. But if we don't tomorrow, then we might want to, I mean,
let's see, there's no point for us meeting for meetings. Yes, we don't. Yeah, we don't. It's very unusual,
right? But it's just we have things that will be,
The following of the 22nd, but we don't have anything. It was your little phone. In a first, could we
do a 545? For the committee. Yeah. I hate to schedule anything less than an hour. Well, if we're expecting
not to have that meeting, though, but we schedule it for an hour and a half. Why don't we why don't
we just do it when council meeting?
You could also wait to see how Wednesday goes and then do a full. And if there is no meeting,
that's good. Yeah, that works. I will put it on. But actually, actually think about this slightly
differently. It might be if what we'd like to do is get some interim people. So let's assume that everything
goes well tomorrow. Everybody goes, yes, please go ahead and do that.
I mean, there's a, there's a case where they go, no, don't go ahead and do that, which changes our timeline.
But let's say they say, go ahead and do that. Then this would give me time. If we said Thursday,
for example, for me, it would give me time to go and like, collect the data, talk to people, right?
So that we have some options by, you know, to actually discuss it. Cause if we meet right away, I mean,
we may not have those considering that we have state of the city as the 31st and.
I have a hard stop at 630, but I can do before then. What are we talking about now? Could we tentatively
hold 530 on Thursday the 2nd? Oh, Thursday the 2nd. I actually don't work that day, so I could do before
that if we could meet during work hours. So that would work better for people. I am not. OK. Sounds
like it doesn't.
Um, so. I usually say that this particular one, I couldn't. Okay. No, the earlier timeline. I can do
an earlier time. We're talking about the second. Yeah. Okay. Does that work for. So five 30 to six 30
or seven, six 30. And then we can hold that. And if we just dispose with the council meeting, then why
don't we just meet when we would have met for council.
Okay. Yeah. I placed goals on rooms. Thank you. And I think on some clerk staffs, I think we'll have.
On both wings? Yeah. Worst case, I'll let this be here on Wednesday, so you guys can be. Chief Clerk
McDowell is a member of this committee, so. Oh, my God. An official. So I have a question before we
adjourn. Did anyone else?
Well, just perfect. So Thursday, April 2nd, five 30 to six 30. And then I do also have a whole from
five to seven in this room on April 1st. Okay. So I'm eating is canceled. So if someone could follow
up with work email, just for Western S as soon as whatever happens tomorrow happens. Yes. Just so I
can release the room. Thank you. So my ask to you is, um, so we're,
The executive session is tomorrow at five. And we start at five. Is it scheduled for five? Is it scheduled
for five? Five to six. And I wonder if we could do it. It's scheduled for five to six. We can't. We
have to have 48 hours notice at home. Oh, we do even for an executive session? Yeah. We're running from
the... Okay. My second ask is, so the whole thing, we have a dispute
interpreting our legal authority to require reasonable conditions and the nature of those reasonable
conditions. I'm sorry? Yeah, are you saying can we get external counsel tomorrow, for example? Can we
get external counsel within the next thing? I mean, we have until May 13th to make a decision on the
law. I'm not saying we take that, but I'm just saying that we contract out for an attorney who has
expertise in land use planning, government affairs, whatever. We can settle this dispute so we're not
arguing the veracity of, you know. If you all agree, will you agree with the following, with the following
set of reasoning? It was under, as council president, I could have said any charge I wanted to the committee. We agree.
However, I chose to give the charge up to vote, right? And so I mean, the question is whether, do I
have the authority to, if there's somebody who's already in the city system that we could, some lawyer
that we already contract with in some way, and we do have funds to do this, so it's not a question of
allocating the funds, do I have the authority to say, hey,
Robert Taft or whatever, Taft Law or whatever. Hey, Ice Miller, can you please be on a call tomorrow?
Can I do that? Well, I think in terms of being on a call tomorrow, I think they need to do research.
I think that, well, the question is, so we have 13 reasons why it's delicious. If you just leave it,
go ahead, Bill, because it's just, I mean, because the question on the first topic is the generality of
Reasonable conditions, but but so so how about how about I find okay? I don't know if we could find
it within the week. It doesn't have to be Yeah, we need to have somebody hired to do a couple hours
of research to figure out Yeah, are we in within our authority somebody would give us some legal opinion
basically. Yep Okay, now we'll settle this and we don't have to go tit-for-tat corporation counselors and Kate
And I talked to Kate in her favor to this. Yeah. I mean, I also think we have a long history, though,
of every single time we've done PODs. I don't think that a single, well, this now is getting outside
of the question. So we can talk about this when. I think we're within an hour, right? But I just want
to settle this so that we don't spend time. Yeah. But let's adjourn this meeting in because I think
the, I do think that's an interesting question to generally have that's more strategic than Ben said.
Can I just share a bit of information? It'll take a minute. So South Bend, Evansville, Terre Haute,
and Lafayette all have an administrator. No, all their administration work is done by our trust. And
they hire legal counsel on contact. Just so you know, we are right.
Well, we are unique in having the staff. And also, I think that it's important to say that the clerk's
office has been very clear that there's a lot of things that council took from the clerk's office in
1988. And so I think that there's, you know, I mean, I support that. I am a devolutionist.
May I have leave to make a couple of quick comments and things like, like, you said, I think it's totally,
I mean, this question is pertinent. Yeah. Well, some of that's not related to that directly. The clerk's
office has been administering and helping the council heavily and working for the council for years, but.
far more so over the last two years. This is the second time you've had a complete turnover and large
vacancy in your office that needed additional staff support. Last time it lasted for about nine months
total in terms of heavy staff time, from the time of the vacancy occurred, the hiring process, and then
the training of the new council attorney, because even on their first day, there was no council member
here who actually helped with their orientation. They do the HR orientation,
but literally knowing where to hang their coat, or go to their restroom, or where their coat machines
are, and all the things that you actually have. The new staff member that fell to clerk staff, that
day in particular was me. But there are clerk staff who have continued to assist in training, answering
questions, and that did not stop after three months. That stopped pretty much right around the time
they gave their notice to leave. And I want to underscore that because
Um, from what I saw some comments made about not wanting. Job support to come from the clerk's office.
Personally, I support, I find apparently insulting to the staff members who've been doing. A buttload
of work on the council for the last several years. As far as having the assistance come to your point
about. Devolution or good wrapping and administrating coming through the office.
I am to quote a former council member, I see the value in it and I also see the costs. So I think that's
a further conversation. There are times when I'm like, yeah, that'd be great. And we can do these things
with the council and make sure we streamline and do project management so that everybody has systems
in place. And I nerd out over that stuff in general. So I love it. And then I think that some of the
things that come with it.
Yes, I just want to kind of throw that out there because what I really, really don't want to do is disrespect
my staff, you know, throw it my way and I get it, but depersonalize it and recognize there are people
who have been doing amazing work on behalf of the council for the last several years, two of them in
this room in particular, but the others have done so as well. Yes. I'm concerned about the vacancies
that are going to occur in the first week of May. Your researcher is leaving.
And at least one, if not two, of your fellows are leaving. So by May 8, you will have zero staff again,
unless you get somebody hired in. We also have the accessibility guidelines that are coming into play.
And those are a hard start date of April 24. So you have to have somebody who can come in and actually
work on that in terms of the administrative council.
whatever day you post for the new position, when you're actually doing it, you have to have those discussions
about where it's going to be posted and how long it's going to be posted. If you want to get a good
pool of candidates, there are minimum 30 days, especially for hiring an attorney. It's going to take
some time to actually go through and you should hire slowly for this position, which is very painful
to say because it feels so urgent right now. I know it's a big opportunity to look at the process as a whole.
But if you rush to hire somebody, run the risk of hiring somebody who doesn't have a full grasp of what
they're facing, and lawyers want a lawyer, and clerks want a clerk, and administrators want to administer,
and you're asking for somebody who can do all three of those things in one, you should really think
about that. And last coming, but the best case scenario I could sketch out, everything goes absolutely
perfectly, starting from the timing in this meeting till
posting and hiring. Best case scenario, you'll have somebody in by the end of June, and I don't see
that happening. But I'm a pessimist. She's an optimist. I'm a pessimist. And last, the role of the clerk's
office. Again, this is taking staffing away from our office. And I know... I don't know how to say this well.
When asked to hire some of the 200 boards and commissions, so we now have a dedicated staffer as far
as I can tell is kind of running ragged, doing all these things with boards and commissions to the point
where I'm like, wow, that was a much bigger job than I expected. And I know you guys need help and we're
trying to do it and it's taking time now. Council, or Sophia and Colleen prepared the packet last week
and thank goodness Colleen had done so before.
Does it help a lot in terms of familiarity with the processes? And it's not something that personally
I object to. I don't want to see a loss of continuity. I want council to continue to actually operate.
I don't want the city to have any stumbles. But I do think there is some consideration that council,
not just the hiring, but the council should talk about in terms of the time and resources the clerk's
office has lost in their work in terms of
supporting council staff and council members. And it is real. And it is, what do you call it? Something
that you can enumerate. What is that word? Yeah, countable. Quantifiable. I don't want to end up in
a situation that we ended up in last time where there was no public acknowledgement of staff for the
work that they did.
from either the council as a whole or from council leadership. That happened last time. I don't want
it to happen again because y'all know I think my staff is underpaid, but I also think they are at least
told that they are valued by me. But sometimes even my saying is not going to be enough. And again,
however different council members may feel about me, I really have a low tolerance for my staff not
being properly appreciated.
With that, I want to thank you. All right. Your adjournment.